How to Compete with Larger Marketers in Programmatic Display Advertising

Understanding Programmatic Display

In the world of advertising and marketing, the smaller and mid-sized fish in the pond are almost always at a disadvantage; the tides tend to favor the larger sharks and whales of the sea. Never has that been more apparent than in the world of programmatic display.

But that doesn’t mean you have to sit back and watch all the traffic and dollars funnel away from you, and into the hands of your largest competitors. Here are a few tips to help you level the playing field.

Even Without Deep Pockets, You Can Get Your Hands On The Latest Technology

Large marketers often times have access to the types of agencies with direct access to the latest ad tech and martech stacks and, often, their own programmatic trading desks. That’s hard to compete with, as these types of technologies typically outperform what you can do within the limited AdWords Google Display Network.

In order to level the playing field, you as a marketer should consider hitching your wagon to a midsized agency (one that handles both large and small clients). The reasoning behind this is that larger clients spend enough to find value in these advanced platforms. You, then, can go along for the ride, making use of these platforms.

Get Creative – And Stay That Way

Larger marketers tend to have better ad creative, and can also make frequent updates to it. This type of adaptable creative helps the media bidding system bid more aggressively. As a smaller marketer, you may not have the resources to create and rotate new creative regularly into your campaigns, but there are some things you can do to keep up. You can turn to a templated approach. Here, you can easily change the message or image, but the logo is already in place. Consider testing native ad units, since they work with lower production values due to where they are displayed.

Rethink The Rigidity Of Your Budget

It’s just natural that marketing departments like solid and predictable budgets. Forecasting is important across multiple departments, but at the same time, forecasting in auctioned media can cause problems, as the inventory and bid landscape changes all the time.

Media-buying teams need to be able to monitor campaigns closely with ROI, volume, and budgets being managed simultaneously. As a smaller business/marketer, you need to be extremely flexible with budgets; you should be willing and able to shift budget to where it works.

It’s also worth reminding you that programmatic is extremely ambiguous. As more and more media has moved to programmatic, you don’t always know the outcome of your media buy until it actually happens. This could serve as a benefit to smaller fish in the sea. Larger marketing departments are often incapable of the type of flexibility needed succeed. Midsize marketers often have fewer siloes slowing them down – take advantage.

OperationROI can help. Our team of programmatic experts can guide you through best practices and develop a systematic approach that helps you maximize the benefits of programmatic display. Contact our team today at 1-888-277-5429, or fill out our contact form, to learn more.